


A Puzzle Piece

by TheAzureFox



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V
Genre: Alternate Timeline, F/M, How does one write Yuri out of his carding element?, I will admit not everything is according to canon, I'm a sucker for Predatorshipping, goddammit ending 6, spoilers (sort-of) for the first half of the Academia arc and episode 123, spoilers for 126
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-03
Updated: 2016-10-03
Packaged: 2018-08-19 06:30:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8193788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheAzureFox/pseuds/TheAzureFox
Summary: There are seven pictures on the wall. Four boys and three girls. He's missing a picture. He's missing the fourth girl, the one that he should know very well.He's missing the bracelet girl from the Fusion dimension.(Alternate timeline from the canon series. Predatorshipping as well as suggested Egao, Apple, and Fruitshipping)





	

**Author's Note:**

> At the time of writing this, I will admit that I had not caught up with the series or was aware of certain events within the series (such as Yuri pursuing Serena in around the 80’s-90’s). Therefore, due to certain plot points in this fic and the laziness of the author, it will be assumed that whatever is in Yuri’s mind messes with his memories. I will also note that that does not follow the canon timeline as, of the time of writing, I had spoiled myself on the Academia arc (up to the episode with Yuri against Asuka) and may have included things from that arc while also following an alternate timeline of events due to having not watched the Academia first half but also due to having spoiled myself.
> 
> This is an alternate attempt at Yuri’s backstory regarding Serena and may make him feel a little bit…OOC, for a lack of a better word. I tried to make him align with canon outside of his whole “people existing=they must die” sort of spiel while also aligning with the values mentioned in episode 123.
> 
> Warning: spoilers for episode 126, 123, and perhaps the first half of the Academia arc.

Yuri stares at the mirror. He stares at the photos of himself. He stares at the figures that stare back, each cloaked in different clothes and different hairstyles but with the same faces and the same build. They’re replicas of each other, these people and him, but Yuri can’t begin to fathom how they relate.

The girls pinned beneath the pictures of his lookalikes tell the same story. Each girl breathes with similar lips and similar eyes, expressions defiant in the face of the camera. They glare and snarl, the bruises on their skin nothing compared to the ferocity they hold. He’s missing a picture though. There are four boys on his wall and yet three girls beneath them. The fourth female is missing, a piece of the puzzle he hasn’t bothered solving until now.

He’s always adored the missions that the Professor handed him. Akaba Leo was a strong leader, one whose will and determination refused to be hampered by the likes of “smiles” or “friendship”. Yuri liked that. But, even more, he liked the orders handed to him.

They were always meaningless tasks. Ones that took very little time and were usually very easy. But, he enjoyed them. Each mission was like an escape from the cooped up palace he rejoiced in, a chance to feel the thrill of danger and conquest. He loved to see people bow before him, to watch their faces turn to horror as he gives them a second of hope, one second of hope, before he cards them for eternity. It was a kind of pleasure he couldn’t obtain by playing “good” and it was the kind of pleasure that kept him from realizing the pain of his own internal conflict.

_“These girls will be controlled by my parasite,” the Doctor had rambled on one of Yuri’s visits to the Professor. “They’ll do anything I say, anything I want. The bugs will make them do it for me. They’ll be loyal to us, loyal to Academia. Can’t you imagine nothing more perfect?”_

_Yuri grimaces as the Doctor gives one of his looks of insanity, a form of craziness that simply could not be matched by Yuri himself. While Yuri acknowledged himself as mad, the Doctor didn’t. He was obsessed with his maniacal fascinations, playing god in a world that was clearly without one. Yuri found it rather disgusting and, though he could sympathize less with the toys the Doctor played with, he despised the way the man crept around with his toys and gimmicks._

_He would never be the target of those parasites, but he didn’t want to be around when they squirmed their way into someone’s brain._

The pictures on the wall gaze at him, full of secrets that he has yet to decipher. He leers at them, at the replicas of himself and of the girls he has taken, and then observes them with frustration. The Professor wants the girls for a reason. He’s made Yuri collect them for a purpose. But what agonizes Yuri so is the words the Professor once spoke to him.

_“Yuzu Hiragi is already in our possession,” the Professor tells him when he returns with hands empty of a girl. Yuri stares up with wide eyes, eyebrows drawn forward in confusion. “Your job is done. We have all four girls in our possession.”_

_“Four?” Yuri echoes._

_The man waves him off. “You are dismissed.”_

_He gives a bow and walks away. He wants to ignore it, the words the Professor speaks. But, he can’t. It doesn’t add up. There are only three girls that the Professor has ever asked him to retrieve. Yet, why are there four in total? Yuri waves it off. Surely, it can’t be too important?_

But it is. Yuri places his hand on the empty space, on the space just below his own picture. The last girl, the girl that refuses to be seen by his eyes, just who is she? Yuri snarls and hits a fist against the wall, ignoring the sharp pain that shoots across his knuckles. It’s a mystery that won’t leave him alone, one that won’t finish disturbing his curiosity until he sates it.

“Who?” he asks to no one in particular. “Why?”

His mind prods at him, pushing him to search for the answer. It’s not like him to care. But he can’t help it. The Professor refuses to give him another mission, refuses to touch the subject of the girls he has stolen. The silence is driving him insane, driving him into a state of craziness that is beyond Yuri’s own understanding.

_“Why are you so crazy?”_

The voice, so innocent and so childish, impedes Yuri’s train of thought. It’s a sudden thought, one triggered no doubt by his own frustration. But, it’s familiar, eerily so. Yuri grapples at the voice, tucking the piece of sound into a record player that echoes over and over again.

“Why are you so crazy?” Yuri repeats.

A girl’s face. Yuri nearly staggers in surprise. The memory is drawn up from a murky lake, snagged on a fishing hook and pushed into his face without a second’s notice.

_The girl is young, hardly seven years of age, but she stands even, her eyes level with his. He must be just as old as her, if not older. Her hair is an odd purple with two lavender bangs peeking over the bottom of her forehead._

_She prods him carelessly with a stick, treating him more like a dead animal than another human being. She is glaring at him, green eyes narrowed and cheeks puffed out._

_“Stop that!” he hears himself telling her. “I’m going to call the Obelisk Force on you!”_

_The girl refuses to stop poking him. “Try it,” she tells him, amused by the threat. “The Professor won’t allow it.”_

_“The Professor?” his younger and older self echoes, if not in interest than in annoyance. His cheek is beginning to go numb._

_“Yeah, he thinks I’m a princess or something,” she scoffs. “He won’t let me go anywhere though.”_

_“Shouldn’t you be in your prison? Why are you targeting me?”_

_“Because you’re weird,” is her simple answer. Her branch seems to move to his other cheek, eager to make it just as numb as his right one. “I heard you were crazy.”_

_“I am,” he responds, ready to take that stick and snap it in half. He grabs for it and she pulls it away just an inch away from his frustrated fingers. “You should fear me. I’m the best at dueling in this school.”_

_“Oh?” she asks, returning to her session of prodding. He reaches for it again and she whacks him on the head. Ow. “You should see me. I’m better.”_

_He eyes her with suspicion, gaze tied to the branch in her hands. “Prove it,” he tells her, grabbing his duel disk from out of his jacket pocket. “Let’s duel!”_

_The girl pulled out a duel disk of her own and set it on her wrist. “You’ll regret this.”_

_He grins. “Bite me.”_

_Yuri frowns. He doesn’t remember ever meeting such a girl. He doesn’t remember meeting a replica of Rin, Ruri, and Yuzu. But, she’s there, clear in his mind. If only he knew her name…_

~~~

He visits the Professor the next day. The man is surprised by his sudden presence, eyes narrowed.

“Who is the girl with the purple hair?” Yuri asks. His voice is calm, cold, of total disinterest. “Who is the fourth girl?”

“She is of no interest to you.”

“But she exists.”

An eyebrow is quirked. “Are you questioning me?”

“I am. Who is she?”

“I’m shocked that you’ve forgotten her,” the man states with a placid wave of his hand. “But, I suppose it matters not. She is not important, Yuri. What is important is to wait until I give you an order.”

That strikes a sort of nerve in Yuri. “Her name?”

“Excuse me?”

“What is her name?”

The Professor tilts his head, a vague smile on his lips. “Serena.”

Serena…the name takes him back.

_The duel is over before it begins. Yuri has demolished her but not without a hefty loss of his own life points. The number one-hundred stares at him with a sneer, reminding him that his dueling skills are not at their absolute best. The girl before him is the first to nearly wreck him. Often, he’s come out of matches with less than five-hundred life points taken from him. This time, however, he’s nearly lost._

_With a huff, the girl sticks out her arm. Yuri stares at it. She shakes her hand up and down, fingers wiggling. “You’re supposed to shake it,” she tells him with a roll of her eyes. “It’s a sign of respect.”_

_He smiles. “So, you respect me?”_

_The boy doesn’t miss the look of irritation that passes over her face. “You beat me,” she says after a struggling pause. “You deserve it.”_

_“Well, I don’t respect you.”_

_She raises the stick in her other hand, a gesture of violence that reminds Yuri of the sore cheeks he now suffers from. He frowns and reaches for the object, determined to pry the offending item from her fingers. She stands on her tiptoes and looks down upon him with amusement. Her hand shoves itself into his face._

_“Shake it,” the girl tells it._

_“I don’t want to,” he lunges for the stick. She steps back and he falls on his face. The pain doesn’t embarrass him as much as her laughter does._

_“You’re funny,” she tells him. “But, I have to ask, why are you crazy?”_

_He looks up at the purple-haired girl, glaring. “Why am I what?”_

_“Crazy?”_

_“Because I am.”_

_“But why?”_

_“Do I need a reason,” he grins, tilting his head in a calm manner, “to be crazy?”_

_She squints her eyes at him. “We’re not getting anywhere, are we?”_

_“Nope.”_

_“Ugh,” she grabs his hand and intertwines it with hers. Yuri stares at her with wide eyes, stunned by the sudden contact. The girl shakes his hand and then drops it. Yuri flexes his fingers, unsure._

_“You’re weird,” he tells her._

_She fidgets with her stick, going quiet. Yuri is unable to tell if he has offended her but he doesn’t have any words to break the silence. Instead, he lets her play with the crude object that has offended him on many different levels._

_“Hey,” she says, quietly, “what’s your name?”_

_It’s a question that doesn’t require much thought. “Yuri.”_

_“Yuri, huh?” she looks at the sky. “My name’s Serena.”_

_“I didn’t ask for your name.”_

_Serena huffs. “And I didn’t ask for your permission.”_

_He smiles lightly. He’s beginning to like this girl._

“I’m guessing her name rings a few bells for you?” the Professor looks down on Yuri. “It should, though I suppose you’ve long forgotten.”

“Forgotten what?”

“The reason you fight for me and me alone.”

~~~

Yuri is escorted out of the Professor’s room before he can make any further inquiries. The memory of Serena whispers to him, strokes his chin and then whispers of secrecy. Yuri refuses to believe that this _Serena_ has somehow become his reason for fighting, the reason why he enjoys bloodshed and the joy that comes from pushing others into despair.

Yet, ironically enough, his memories remember her in a rather _fond_ light. Fond enough to nearly make Yuri question his own state of being. He can nearly remember Serena’s touch on his hand, the way her fingers intertwined with his on the insistence that they shook hands. Ugh. He’s not sure why these memories are shaking him up but they are.

“Serena,” the name is poison on his lips. Her face is like that of the girls he’s captured. Yet, never once did he remember her. “Why now?”

He paces around his room, around the cold, hard floors and around the various papers that lie scattered down upon it. Yuri’s done his research on his counterparts. He’s done his research on the girls. Yet, Serena is the only one he knows little about. His memories are a piece to the puzzle, a piece to the mystery that tears at his mind. If only he hadn’t been confronted by that Yugo, if only he hadn’t been forced to open up his eyes to the enigma that surrounds him and the girls he’s captured. It’s a nightmare, one that he wishes he never woke up to. He just wants to return to the comfort of his assassin life, to a life where everything is black and white and he is the black in a world otherwise tainted white. But, he can’t. Not with these memories that threaten the meaning of his existence.

Serena haunts his mind. She haunts his eyes in a way that Ruri, Rin, and Yuzu cannot. There is something strange about her, something that makes him furious at his own lack of an explanation. The girl glares at him, tempting him with a look of defiance. He wants to pry all her secrets open, to understand why his memory centers on a bracelet girl lookalike, around the fourth lookalike.

_Serena runs away before he can continue any further conversation. Yuri doesn’t bother running after her. He knows that she’s a caged bird, one whose wings can’t carry her anywhere. But, he dislikes the feeling of loneliness that accompanies her disappearance. He can’t help but admit that he felt comfortable as shocking as it is for him to say._

_The next day, he arrives in the same spot they met at the same exact time. It’s not out of hope that he arrives there coincidentally, it’s out of interest. The girl he had met the day before made him curious, oddly so. He couldn’t say anything else in Academia had ever piqued such feelings from him._

_But, she isn’t there. The hallway is empty. It’s a barren wasteland scorched by a cruel sun, one that leaves Yuri standing and searching in the hopes of mystical water. He clenches his fists, embarrassed to chase such hopes, when he feels a blunt object stab him in the back. He jumps and spins around, sliding his duel disk around his wrist without a moment’s hesitation._

_“Yo!” Serena says, grinning at him. “Crazy kid, how are ya?”_

_“I have a name,” he states._

_“Yeah, crazy kid,” she twirls another godforsaken branch in her hands, spinning it like a baton. “Anyways, I wanted to ask you.”_

_“Ask me what?” he replies, irritated. If she pokes him with that branch again he swears to the Professor that he’ll…._

_“Have you ever been off this island before?” the purple-haired girl meanders over to a balcony and peers over it. Yuri follows her, gazing out into an ocean of blue-gray._

_“Not yet,” he tells her. “Soon.”_

_“Soon?”_

_He soaks in the jealously that steams off her with a grin. “The Professor says I’m almost ready for my first mission.”_

_“Where? Where are you going?”_

_“To the homeland.”_

_“The homeland?” Serena furrows her eyebrows and then, in a sudden fit of frustration, stomps her feet on the ground. “That’s not fair!” she huffs. “Why do you get to go outside? I can fight almost as good as you can!”_

_He’s a bit offended by that comment. “I’m a better candidate. I did beat you, after all.”_

_She shoots a sudden glare at him. “A duel,” she states._

_“I’m sorry?”_

_“Fight me in another duel. I’ll prove to you I’m not the princess you all think I am.”_

_He smirks and raises his duel disk. “Bring it.”_

Yuri grimaces. The memories just keep coming whether he wants them or not. They’re agonizing thoughts, ones that make his head spin and his body shake. Now that the barriers in his mind were broke, feeling began to return to him. It wasn’t that he was an emotionless bastard, but the feelings stirring inside him echoed of another time, of another era in which he wasn’t just a willing puppet.

The pictures on the wall gaze at him again, their stares burning with knowing. Yuri nearly scratches them off from their pedestal, wanting to ruin those images until their stares could no longer investigate him. They blamed him. They despised him, loathed him. Yet, the pictures on the wall soften, eyes rounded instead of angled and lips a line of unquestionable trust. It’s like they are changing along with him, transforming before his eyes as recollections batter him into another person.

He swings away from them, his cape covering their images for the briefest of seconds. A shadow hovers over them, tucking the various boys and girls into darkness before the light of his room washes them back into brilliant color. Yuri sends them one last glance before he leaves his room. Before he leaves the academy and sets off on a mission the Professor had not asked of him.

He was going to find Serena.

~~~

Of course, finding a girl he knew little about was like finding the knife in the midst of a giant haystack. It was dangerous and hard to do. One slip of the tongue could easily lead back to the Professor and Yuri didn’t want his chain to be pulled before he could get a taste of what he was looking for.

He started with the prisons. Each of the girls he had captured had been sent to various towers of cobbled stone. There were four of them, four spiraling masses of gray that reached to touch the sky. They spun and spun with endless staircases, ascending into a kind of heaven that did not welcome freedom or defiance. Yet, as Yuri climbed the first of the four, he found that he was being lifted from his responsibilities as Academia’s puppet.

_The duel this time ends in a draw. Both of their life points are vanquished to zero simultaneously; a result Yuri had not calculated. Both Serena and him topple over as their monsters fade from view, exhaustion clear on their faces. The sun had just barely begun to poke around the horizon of the sea when they started and now it hung in the sky, glaring down upon them._

_“It was…a draw?” Yuri inquires with a kind of awe. He had never once been settled into that position before. “How?”_

_“I told you, I’m just as good as you are,” she tells him, hands on her hips. “The Professor should know this by now,” she becomes pensive. “If I tell him about this then maybe, just maybe…” Serena shakes her head. “No, he will let me go on missions. I’m not worthless.”_

_Yuri is still stunned that someone else managed to be on the same level as him. “You shouldn’t be able to do this. You should have lost.”_

_She glares at him. “That was a draw. Accept it already.”_

_He shakes his head. “I can’t. There’s no way you were able to do that without cheating.”_

_“Why, because I’m a girl?”_

_“No. Because no one has ever managed to be on the same level as me.”_

_Serena observes him quietly, rubbing her chin as she does so._

_“What?”_

_“You’re in denial.”_

_That strikes a nerve. “Am not.”_

_“Are too,” she grins as he puffs out his cheeks._

_He stares at her, bewildered. The girl before him is an enigma, one who doesn’t shake at his skills or at the murderous glare he’s practiced for so many months. Instead, she offers him a cheeky smile, takes his hands, and shoves him around like a puppet. He is a deity to be feared. He’s a demon in a city of sheep, a god among peasants. He’s not someone to be shuffled around like a common animal._

_Yet, Serena pulls him around Academia’s grounds like the child she is, offering no explanation as she guides him through a maze of halls and doors._

_“Where are we going?” he dares to ask, wanting to simultaneously slip his hand out of hers and to shout at her to slow. Down. Because he is dying and he’s going to need to catch his breath if she wants to keep dragging him in the same goddamn loop._

_“You’ll see!” she chirps, her pace picking up instead of dropping. Yuri offers a wheeze, his dueling majesty no match for his lack of an athletic body._

_He only offers one thought:_

_Dear God why?_

Yuri reaches the top of the first tower with a slight lack of breath. He’s gotten better since then but, even so, he _hates_ walking. There’s a reason why teleportation was invented, after all, and it’s to keep him from doing any form of reasonable exercise.

At the top of the ungodly amount of stairs Yuri sees a chamber of stone bricks and a gray cone roof. Inside it sits the first princess, though which of the four girls that is, Yuri does not know. He approaches the door, opens it with a set of keys granted to those of the Professor’s closest, and proceeds forward. A short hall way meets him and, at the end of it, another door. Yuri walks up to it and peers through the bar-filled hole that keeps him from the prisoner inside.

Dark purple hair and pink eyes greet him. A girl no younger than him sits on a bed kept in luxury, her dilapidated looks clashing with the satin sheets she sits upon. Her gaze is blank as it turns to him, dull and lifeless. Yuri wonders if it is the parasite watching him or the girl herself. He supposes it doesn’t matter, so long as she answers truthfully.

“Ruri Kurosaki.” He states her name with little tact.

“Yu..to?” Her gaze brightens slightly, as if the sight of him (or rather, his lookalike) is enough to give her hope. She combs her fingers through her tangled hair anxiously. “Yuto? Is that you?”

The boy wonders if he should play along with the image Ruri sees before her. He wants answers but he also doesn’t want to stretch his meeting along anymore than he has to. “Ruri, I need you to answer me. Do you know who Serena is?”

“Serena?” Ruri furrows her eyebrows and jumps off her bed. “Yuto, what do you mean? Who’s Serena?”

Yuri takes that as confirmation that Ruri knows nothing of the girl he searches for. Disgusted, he turns on his heels. Ruri calls out his name, calls out the name of his XYZ counterpart, and then bangs upon the door as her voice contorts with confusion and pain.

To the next tower, then.

_When Serena actually gets her sense of direction back and fails to complete another loop around the same sets of hallways, Yuri finds himself in the midst of a garden. It’s a sad little thing, with plants as gray as the clouded sky above them, but Serena skips through it as though it is vivid with life. Yuri, though, has his lungs on the verge of being fired, their lack of a proper airflow throughout his body leading him to barely stand at all._

_“Come here, come here,” Serena gestures him over and points to an item obstructed from an ash-gray bush. Yuri shuffles his way over, barely concentrating as he kneels beside her._

_The girl smiles as her hands cup around a single flower, a white daisy that peeks up defiantly from a wasteland of dead plants. “It’s beautiful,” she speaks the word in a whisper, as if she’s afraid of what it means._

_“It’s ugly.”_

_Serena gives him an aghast look, one that speaks of her horror towards his choice of words. Her body leans over the flower until it is blocked from his point of view. Yuri huffs. “What are you doing?”_

_“Protecting it.”_

_“…Alright.” He raises an eyebrow but Serena doesn’t budge. Her gaze is tossed downwards and towards the flower that lingers beneath her. Her eyes are soft, her cheeks a light pink, and she gazes at the cursed flower with all the joy a child can muster._

_Yuri just doesn’t understand it._

The next set of stairs he teleports to. He’s been to the base of the second tower before, mostly for a brief interrogation with its captive before she became imprisoned at the top, and he’s sure that Rin will be happy to see him. The journey up the stairs is just as exhausting as the second one but he makes it in quick intervals between teleporting and walking. Upon arriving at the chamber, he heads through the first door, past its short hallway, and towards the room of the second bracelet girl.

“Who is it?” Rin asks from inside her enclosure.

No need to keep up a pretense. Rin won’t mistake him as easily as Ruri did for her boy counterpart. “Do you know who Serena is?” he asks her, leaning against the wall next to the wooden door that sits between them.

It seems that she recognizes his voice. “Go to hell.”

“A great suggestion,” he tells her, “but I’m already there.”

A bed squeaks. “What do you want?”

“I asked you, do you know Serena?”

“Who?”

There’s a mocking note that leads Yuri to question whether she is withholding information or just playing with him. “Tell me who she is.”

“Why?”

“Do you want to know where your precious Yugo is?”

A hand reaches out to curl around a silver bar. She twists it with furious movements. “What did you do to him?”

“I’ll repeat my question. Do you know who Serena is?”

“No,” her voice lowers into a sincere tone, one that wobbles with uncertainty and hope. “I don’t know. Why?”

He pauses at the question, wavering. It’s not something he expects. He searches for an answer but fails to grasp one. Why? Why is he searching for Serena? Does he know? Is there a reason? Why even bothering asking these girls for information when he knows the real thing could be kept in any one of these cruel, cruel towers?

He closes his eyes and smiles. “Yugo is already here in Academia,” he tells her. Yuri doubts she knows of the worm that crawls in her mind, of the parasite that acts like a light switch. But, he still offers her a tidbit of hope, a piece of information for a piece of information. She just doesn’t know that their meeting will be a cruel one.

He leaves Rin with that information, disappearing as she falls into silence. The third tower will surely not disappoint him.

_“I’ve never seen a real flower before. I mean, aside from the daisy,” Serena tells him when she finally finds her concealing pose to be a more harmful one than beneficial. She stretches her arms and back, twisting and popping parts of her body until she sags into a comfortable pose of legs criss-crossed and back straightened. “I’ve heard there are plenty on the mainland but the Professor won’t let me go there.”_

_“Why not?”_

_“It’s forbidden,” she rolls her eyes. “He says I’ll just be in danger and that strange people will try to kidnap me. Bullshit. I can handle myself just as well as anyone else can.”_

_He raises an eyebrow at the crude language. “You know daisies are the most basic and plain of flowers, right? They’re not beautiful they’re mundane and common.”_

_Serena glares spitefully. “I like it,” she says to him, finger lingering on the multitudes of white petals that sit around the golden center. “It’s colorful, unlike the rest of this stupid school.”_

_“It’s not as colorful as roses or lilies or tulips,” he scowls. Her words are an insult to all flower kind. “Or moonflowers, for that matter.”_

_“Moon flowers?” she perks up at the name with a kind of wonder and awe. “What are those?”_

_“Flowers.”_

_“Well, no, duh,” she has an expression a person close to strangling another might have. “But what do they look like? Are they silver? White? Do they look like the moon? Are they rabbit-shaped?”_

_“They’re white, first of all, and, no, they are not as round as the moon,” he dangles the information over her and she gobbles it up with wide eyes. In a way, it makes Yuri glad. He can’t talk about his passion of flowers in front of others, much less those like Dennis or the Professor. He’s always had a reputation to keep up and to see it scratched away so easily by this girl leaves him little choice but to express his passion in a way that no one else will let him. “They are a plant that only blooms under the light of the moon.”_

_“Really?” he nods and Serena grins from ear to ear. “I wish I could see such a thing. This daisy is the only thing in this garden that’s alive. I just wish I could see more.”_

_Yuri gives a muffled laugh at her enthusiasm. “I’m sure, one day, you will.”_

The third tower he arrives at with sluggish steps. The amount of stairs the Professor has for each tower is a crime, one that keeps Yuri out of breath and cursing every single step that gets in his way. If only he had done this sooner, he could have just teleported to the top without all the painful walking that comes with investigating a new area.

He flings open the door to the cold, gray chamber without any regard for the noise he is making. From the end of the hallway, he hears a squeak and rapid footsteps.

“Yuya?” the voice asks, familiar and irritating. He’s heard that voice more times than he can count. “Yuya? Is that you?”

The boy heaves a sigh. “If I hear the name of a counterpart of mine one more time…” he walks to the barred door. “Yuzu Hiragi. I need to ask you a question and I want you to answer it honestly-”

“Why would I?” she interrupts, her hopeful voice smashed by the bitterness in her tone. “Why should I help someone like you?”

“Ah, you remember me. Good.” He walks up to her cell and sees her silver eyes glaring from within the darkness of her prison. “Now, Yuzu. I need you to answer me. Do you know who Serena is?”

There’s a slight intake of breath. “Serena?”

“Do you know who she is?”

“I…No. No I don’t.”

Without warning, he slams his hands on the door. From behind the screen of jet black, Yuzu stumbles back. She gazes at him, wide-eyed. “Tell me the truth,” he snarls. “You know her, don’t you? I can tell. You recognize that name.”

“She’s your comrade now, isn’t she? Don’t you know who she is?”

“Comrade?” he scoffs. “No, she’s one of you, isn’t she? She’s another princess in this godforsaken academy, one enslaved by the bracelet on her wrist.”

Yuzu stares at him with a mixture of confusion and worry. “Why do you care?”

“I…” he grapples for the words, frustrated that he can’t create an explanation. “I need answers.”

Yuzu stares at him for a long, painful moment. “I don’t know where Serena is,” she murmurs. “She’s gone.”

He scowls. Her reply is sincere. She doesn’t know where Serena is. And, judging from the way her shoulders hunch and her back turns to him, he’s not getting any further answers. Yuri turns his sights towards the fourth tower, teeth biting on his lower lip. He wants to find his solution. He wants to be done with this nonsense, with the inquiries and the puzzles, with the empty words and the notions that question.

He’s just afraid that he can never turn back.

_When the Professor hears of his request, the man laughs. It’s a deep, disturbing laugh, one that makes Yuri shiver after his words are uttered._

_“You want to plant flowers?” the man asks him. “You, my little champion?”_

_He tries to take the situation with ease. “It gives me something to do,” he shrugs. “I’d like to raise a garden of them in the courtyard, if you don’t mind.”_

_“Sure,” the man agrees without any word of complaint. “Anything you ask. As long as it is reasonable, I’ll grant it. Tell me, what types of flowers do you wish to plant?”_

_“Moonflowers,” Yuri tells him. “I want moonflowers.”_

_The Professor’s eyes narrow for a fraction of a second. “I see. Anything else?”_

_“Roses, tulips, lilies,” he lingers in silence, “daisies.”_

_“That’s all?”_

_Yuri nods. The Professor waves a hand. “It shall be done. I’ll have some men of mind deliver them to your room sometime this week. In the meanwhile, have you been practicing your dueling?”_

_He thinks of Serena. “I have.”_

_“Good. You are dismissed.”_

_Yuri leaves with the sense of having exchanged a bargain of some sort. It’s a weird sensation, one that feels more like an embargo than an actual exchange, but Yuri is relieved that he can plant the flowers. He thought he would only incur the wrath of the Professor. Instead, he’s being granted a boon without any penalty._

~~~

_The next day, he finds a box of seeds at his door. The box itself is unimpressive – it’s brown and box-like, nothing more and nothing less. But the packages inside are colorful, dancing with pink flowers, green stems, red borders, and jingling noises as he shakes them up and down in his excitement. He hurries to the garden without delay and begins to sow the seeds. He has all the supplies and he knows the steps to start a garden. He has the instructions on the back of the packages to guide him, he just doesn’t know if he can keep the garden alive in time for the flowers to bloom. Until they do, though, Yuri will keep them a secret._

The fourth tower is shorter than the other three and, thus, it is a shorter trip from the bottom of the stairs to the top. Yuri doesn’t know what he expects from this fourth tower but he wants to be able to see the girl who haunts his mind. At the very least, he’ll get the answers he’s searching for.

 _Tap, tap._ His shoes fall upon cold, stone steps. _Tap, tap._ His teeth bite into his lower lip. He’s not worried. He’s not scared. He’s not nervous to meet the girl whose smile speaks of comfort and joy. He can’t feel such feelings. He’s Yuri, a god among peasants, a monster among children, a dueling champion among ordinary duelists. A simple bracelet girl can’t frighten him.

He arrives at the top and steels himself with a deep breath. Finally, he can find the last piece of the puzzle.

The door is already open when he arrives and Yuri slides by it and towards the chamber that lies at the end. He pauses, his hand hovering over the knob of the entrance of the prison room. It’s unlike him to hesitate. But, yet, he lingers. He doesn’t want his answer yet.

His fingers tighten around the knob. “Serena?” he asks.

A pause. No answer. Yuri frowns. “Serena? Are you in there?”

She is the last girl of the collection. The Professor told him that he had found all four. So, why? Why did the girl not answer him?

In a fit of frustration, he unlocked the door. His key fumbled in the keyhole, clinking up and down until it unlatched. Yuri shoved the door open.

What greeted him was a room of near perfect order. It was a mirror to the rest of the girl’s rooms; there was a bed with silken sheets, a desk, a chair, a window from which to gaze out of the tower, and several pillows that linger upon the bed. The space was almost in pristine condition. The only sign of life came from the sheets that were tossed aside carelessly, wrinkles emerging from ruffled corners. Yuri nearly screamed. He was close, _so close_ and yet Serena evaded him once again!

From the corner of his eyes, Yuri sees a photograph. He turns to it, suddenly alert, and picks it up with calm fingers. The photo is of Yuya Sakaki. In it, the boy curls his arm around a purple-haired girl with an orange hair ribbon and a red Riding suit. He recognizes the girl. He’s seen her before.

“Is she…Serena?”

No, of course she is. He’s seen her before, grouped with Sora and his Standard counterpart. He should know this, he’s chased after her down before. But, his memories are becoming muddled, trapped and swallowed up by a black hole. His new memories are clashing with his old ones. He’s growing unstable.

“Where?” Yuri asks. His obsession is growing and, with it, he’s shrinking inside. Serena is one of the last pieces of the puzzle. She’s the last counterpart, the one who matches to him in this jigsaw mess. “Where is she?”

He doesn’t have answers. He doesn’t have enough clues. Serena is captured, but she’s free. She’s not locked away, not like the others. But, where? Where can she be?

A spark of light emerges from the ground below, the call of a battle and the cry of a falcon. A shape arises from the ground and circles the towers, a bird of mechanical proportions. Yuri feels he should recognize the beast but he doesn’t. It’s a Duel Monster. That’s all he knows and that’s all he bothers to think about.

 _If Serena isn’t locked away in a tower_ , he ponders, _then she’s no doubt turned into a puppet by the Doctor_. He knows the other Bracelet Girls have parasites in their minds. And, by process of elimination, he can determine that Serena is most likely in the Doctor’s hands.

He holds out a card and a magenta portal opens before him, he steps into it, his cape flowing behind him.

He will find Serena.

He will find her, even if he has to card the Doctor himself.

~~~

_Serena finds his garden before he can stop her. He had originally intended for it to be a secret, one that he would protect until the time was ripe. But, alas, he had forgotten that it was Serena’s place first and, as such, he had forgotten that she would not easily abandon it._

_She walks in on him watering plants. Serena stares at him, her face an expression of puzzlement, before she realizes what he is doing. She points a finger at him and laughs._

_“What?” He asks, puffing out his cheeks._

_“You look so stupid!”_

_He guesses that she is referring to the yellow gloves he wears on his hands and the watering can that sits between his fingers. He scowls at her and swings his watering can in her direction._

_Water splashes out the spout, sprinkling down upon Serena. The girl immediately stops her giggling, eyes wide as she gazes at him with a mixture of astonishment and fury. Her eyes slide to the side and, before he can even stop her, she picks up a stick left carelessly on the ground and charges._

_He sidesteps and she skids past. Light on her feet, she twists around and aims again. He blocks with the watering can and she moves forward, her strength pushing him back. He scowls and tries to retaliate but finds himself floundering as she continues shoving him backwards._

_He falls back before he can stop himself. Her strength is overbearing and, as a result, he is sent flying back. He lands with a loud thud and he winces as pain courses through his body. He hurts all over._

_Serena stands over him with triumph, her eyes telling what her frowning mouth can’t. She’s proud of herself._

_“Here,” she says, offering him a hand._

_Yuri eyes it with distaste. “No.”_

_The girl gives an aggravated sigh and pulls him forcibly to his feet. He yelps and struggles to break free of her hand. However, her grip is firm and she refuses to unlatch her fingers from his._

_“Did you plant these yourself?” she asks him, her grudge forgotten by her sudden remembrance of the plants he had been watering. Yuri’s almost amazed that their little scuffle hasn’t trampled the plants to death._

_“Yes,” he admits, knowing that skirting around the truth won’t help his case. She’ll find out one way or another so, he figures, he ought to be frank with her._

_Serena crouches down to observe the little seedlings that have curled up from the ground. “What are they?” she asks._

_“Flowers,” he tells her._

_A smile as bright as the moon illuminates her face. “I want to see them when they’re all grown, alright? I won’t even ask what they are. I want it to be a surprise!”_

_He smiles in spite of himself. “Sure,” he says and then adds in a whisper, “I want you to see them too.”_

The Doctor’s lair is cold. There’s an unsettling chill about the laboratory, one that forces Yuri’s footsteps to take a careful pace. The Doctor, a man of long white hair and bulging eyes, regards him with a curious tilt of his head as Yuri appears inside the space. On the screen behind him, a battle is going off, monsters roaring and duelists shouting in desperation.

“Yuri!” the Doctor cries, cackling to himself. “Are you here to watch my magnificent show? My parasites do their jobs quite well, if I am to ruffle my own feathers.”

His eyes widen a fraction and then narrow. “Where is Serena?” he asks.

The Doctor’s head tilts to the other side, cocking with interest. “My pet?” he asks and then gestures to the screen behind him. On it, a purple-haired girl faces a blue-haired boy, duel disks out and glimmering.

Yuri recognizes the pair. Serena and Yugo. Ha, how fitting. His annoying counterpart against the girl who annoys his mind.

“She’s a darling, that one,” the Doctor smirks to himself. “She fought against the parasite when Barrett brought her back. She tried to stop my cute little bugs from burrowing into her head. She screamed so much, but not as much as the other two. Now she has absolutely no clue that she’s my cute, little puppet.”

Something about the man’s words rub Yuri the wrong way. The man before him is crazy.

“Release her,” he states, his voice cold with ice.

“Hmm?”

“Release her. Get the parasite out of her brain.”

The Doctor grins. “You want to free her? Why do that when you can play with her? I can make her do anything you want. Once she wins this battle, she can be your toy. I have no qualms with sharing.”

Yuri narrows his eyes. “Release her.”

The man frowns, all amusement lost. Instead, a sinister look overtakes his face. “No. I refuse. I won’t let such a perfect toy be taken from me.”

“If you don’t want do it then I’ll force you,” Yuri takes out his Duel Disk and boots it up.

“You want a battle? With me? I can’t have that now,” the Doctor holds up a Duel Monster card. On it, a bug of some sort is inscribed, bearing pincers that leer at Yuri. From the shadows of the laboratory, he sees a pink portal flash into view. From it steps out Yuzu. The girl looks at him with a sickening smile, holding out her right arm. On it, he sees the bracelet that has sent him away so many times before. It blinks rapidly, as if sensing his presence. The madman with the card cackles. “Bye-bye, Yuri. Thanks for stopping by.”

“ _No!_ ” Yuri screams, turning on the Doctor. He lunges towards the man, aiming for the throat.

Pink colors his vision. His hands touches skin and then, without warning, he vanishes into a void of darkness.

~~~

_Serena has become a frequent visitor to his little garden. Her interest in the cultivation of flowers has made her his one and only guest to the paradise he nurtures. The place has become a sort of sanctuary for him, one where he can relax and take his mind off the studies the Professor has handed him. Serena is often by his side during the times he is off, attending to him during the quieter times of the late afternoon._

_One evening, however, is an exception._

_Serena is sitting beside him, talking about her studies while he tends to her flowers. The sun is already setting low, waning into nighttime, but the students of Academia do not rest quite as easily._

_A group of them wanders upon the garden when they are talking about moonflowers. The boys approach him with caution, their duel disks flaring in the light of the sunset. Yuri eyes them with annoyance, his beautiful evening ruined by their sudden intrusion._

_“What do you want?” he asks. Serena looks at him in question before realizing they have guests._

_The head of the group, a boy in a blue uniform, looks at him with disgust. “A duel.”_

_“You’ll lose,” states in a voice that tells only the truth._

_“Y-You don’t know that!” the boy snaps, swinging his hand to the side. “Fight me! I’m going to be the best! The Professor will look at me, not you!”_

_Yuri huffs and activates his duel disk. “Fine, whatever.”_

_“Yuri!” Serena hisses but he merely scowls._

_“I’ll be quick.”_

_The girl eyes him and then gives an exasperated smile. “Demolish them quickly.”_

_“I will.”_

_The boy declares his turn first. His blue-coated opponent takes a nervous step back as Yuri summons two monsters to the field, both with high attack._

_His challenger summons a few monsters, combining them into a fusion summon. He attacks one of Yuri’s monsters and shaves off 100 lifepoints._

_Yuri goes next, calling another monster to take its place. He summons another and aims three attacks at the boy, one stopped by a trap card but the rest send the blue-coated boy into a state of 900 lifepoints._

_Instantly, as if a declaration of war has been called, the other five members of the boy’s group jump into action. They ready their duel disks and take the 2000 point penalty._

_“Hey, that’s not fair!” Serena shouts. Without warning, she too rises from the ground and takes the damage meant for intrusion. “I’m joining this fight!”_

_“Six against two?” the blue-coated boy asks with a huff. “You’re stupid, girl.”_

_Serena bristles, declaring her turn before anyone can stop her. She places two trap cards on her field and then calls for two monsters to defend her. She aims for the blue-coated boy and defeats him with ease._

_His friends, however, don’t back down quite as easily. One calls in his monsters and aims for Serena, sneering at her as her creatures are vanquished before her own eyes. Yuri watches with frustration as Serena is battered by the boy’s monsters, losing her lifepoints at an alarming rate._

_There’s an itch inside of him. Something that scratches at his mind in an irritating way. He wants to relieve himself of its presence, but it pulses and bulges, refusing to be put down by any sense of calmness. It’s maddening, really, this itch that tugs at his brain._

_The second one aims for Serena as does the third. Finally, at the fourth, all her struggling is for naught and she is vanquished at zero life points. Yuri watches as the boys laugh at her, jeering and mocking her inability to defend herself. The prickling sensation grows hotter._

_The next two boys, in a display of confidence and smug pride, face Yuri with leers. “You’re nothing special,” one says, wandering over to the garden Yuri has cultivated. “You’re just like these flowers,” he tells the boy, his shoe falling down upon the plants beneath him and crushing them into the ground. “You’re unworthy of being called the Professor’s best.”_

_Something snaps inside Yuri. Something that makes him ache all over. His mind sears white hot and, without realizing it, he loses control of himself. He blacks out._

_When he awakes though, Serena is looking up at him with horror. The six boys who had challenged him were on the ground in odd positions, unconscious but badly hurt. He swears he sees blood decorating their skin but he can’t focus upon it. His mind is in a haze and it is only when a hand lands on his shoulder does he realize his situation._

_“Yuri,” the Professor asks. “Did you do this?”_

_The boy looks down at the six who litter the ground. He looks at his hands, at the red that smears them and at Serena, who runs to the Professor’s side and watches Yuri with both fear and caution._

_“I…” he flounders, unable to come up with an excuse, “don’t know.”_

_His teacher frowns and looks back behind him, to the men who are draped in white masks and blue uniforms. The Obelisk Force. They sit there eerily, waiting for the orders the Professor has yet to give. “Take these children to the infirmary,” the bald man says. “Bring Serena to her room and keep her there. Yuri, I need you to come with me.”_

_The boy bites his lip, looking at his hands. “Professor…”_

_The man stares at him. “Yuri,” he says sternly, “come here.”_

_“Professor,” Yuri begins, looking up at the man with eyes a dull magenta. “Let me finish them. Let me end them. I was almost done with them. Please, just a little more time.”_

_There’s a slight intake of breath. “Yuri,” the Professor grabs his shoulders. “Come here.”_

_And then, with a grip that Yuri tries to break free from, he drags the boy with him. He struggles against the crushing grip, complaining about the pain that sears his arm, but he is unable to sway the man._

_“Ow, Professor! Stop it! Stop it!” he shrieks, trying to pry away from the man. “What did I do? What did I do wrong? Let me go!”_

_Leo Akaba doesn’t look at him. “He’s coming,” the man whispered and then moved forward in a way that began to drag Yuri behind him. “We can’t have him here,” he turns to the boy. “Snap out of it, Yuri. Don’t let him take you over.”_

Yuri has more questions than answers. But, when he is plunged into the middle of a war-torn Academia, he has no qualms about getting the truth. He’s in the middle of a battle zone now and, if he wants to find Serena, he’s going to need to be aware of his surroundings.

Only, he’s unsure. Should he meet her, meet the girl whose terrified face filled his mind? What had he done on that day? The blood was still ripe on his hands seven years later. But, only now, the blood formed the shape of cards.

A dragon’s roar. From the pocket of his jacket, he sees a glow. He pulls out his deck and grabs Starve Venom from the pile. His dragon is glowing, illuminated by a mysterious light. Yuri’s eyes narrow. Yugo must be nearby and, with him, Serena.

He steps lightly off the fallen pillar he has landed upon and falls onto the ground. He moves forward, unperturbed, and searches for the source of the cry. Lights clash in the northern direction and Yuri strolls towards it, an itch persisting in his mind.

It’s happening again. He can feel it. That white-hot blaze that sears his mind.

His counterpart is calling out to him.

~~~

_The Professor brings him to a room with only a throne chair to accompany it. Yuri looks up at the man, confused and frightened as to why his teacher is looking down up him with anger._

_“You lost control of yourself,” the man states._

_“I…did?” He looks at his hands and then up above._

_“You hurt six of your peers.”_

_“They deserved it!” he snapped, anger lurching in him. “They crushed my plants, they hurt Serena!”_

_“Serena?” the man’s eyes go cold. “You never should have met her.”_

_Yuri looks up at him, eyebrows furrowed. “Why?”_

_“You two aren’t meant to be together. I thought you could coexist but I was wrong. You can’t. She’s too important and I’m not going to let you hurt her again.”_

_He looks up at the Professor with shock. “But I didn’t hurt her! Those boys did!”_

_The man tilts his head. “Did you not see the look on her face when she saw you? That wasn’t the look of someone who was saved. That was the face of someone who was hurt by another she knew.”_

_He flounders for an explanation. “I didn’t do anything!” he snarls._

_“No, you didn’t,” Leo stares at him._

_The prickling sensation claws at him. “I didn’t hurt her! I didn’t hurt those boys! They did that to themselves! I was only showing them how wrong they were! They can’t call me unworthy!”_

_“Yuri, calm down.”_

_He looks at his hands and laughs. “I’m not unworthy,” he whispers, in a daze. “They told me I was unworthy. Me? I’m the greatest duelist. I’m never unworthy. They won’t separate me from her. There’s blood on my hands now. I can taste it, the fear they fed me. I want to do it again. I want to see them bow before me.”_

_“YURI!”_

_He snaps out of it, looking up at the man who has raised him. “Pro…fessor?”_

_The man gives a sigh. “You’re back. Listen, Yuri. You won’t be able to see Serena again.”_

_“Why?” he whispers, hurt by the words._

_“She needs to stay safe,” Leo says. “But, in the meanwhile, I want you to do something for me. Let me first ask you, does something feel very wrong inside you?”_

_“I itch,” Yuri responds automatically, trusting in the man before him. “My mind itches so much.”_

_He nods. “Yuri, if you like. I can make it stop.”_

_“How?”_

_Leo Akaba holds out a device. It is slender and round, light blue in color but a beautiful azure in Yuri’s eyes. “I will let you card people. You will become my soldier. There is a war brewing, Yuri, and I will need you on the frontlines. Can you do it, for me?”_

_His hand reaches for the device. He doesn’t know what the Professor means by “card” but he can guess._

_The Professor wants him to murder people._

_And, to Yuri, that means taking a breath of air in a place that’s now become suffocated in water._

~~~

When Yuri arrives, Yugo is in a state of disarray. His riding suit is torn, shredded away by the effects of battle. Scratches and bruises mar the blue-haired boy’s body, giving Yugo a battered look that simply doesn’t suit him. His D-wheel hums as Yuri approaches, unaware of his presence.

Across from Yugo, a girl with purple hair smirks, her eyes wide with insanity.

Serena.

He recognizes her easily.

“Is that all you have?” the girl asks Yugo, sneering down upon Yuri’s lookalike. “Pity, I thought you would have put up more of a fight.”

“S-Shut up!” Yugo snarls. “You’re not Serena! Don’t talk with her voice!”

“I’m not?” the girl frowns, tapping her chin. Yuri watches her with narrowed eyes, knowing of the worm that crawls in her mind. Serena gives a mocking laugh. “No, I am. I’m the new Serena, one reborn by the Doctor. I’ve become someone better, someone new.”

Yuri approaches with light steps, a benevolent smile on his face. Venom threads its way into his voice as his dueling device activates. “My turn!” he calls.

“Intrusion penalty. 2000 life points.”

Both Yugo and Serena look at him with shock and surprise. “You bastard!” Yugo screams, ready to jump off his motorcycle and aim for Yuri’s throat.

“So, you came to fight for me?” Serena asks, eyebrows raised. “Or are you going against the Professor’s wishes?”

The name of his teacher makes Yuri hesitate. But then he pauses, shakes his head, and shoves a hand in Yugo’s over-eager face. The boy yelps and stumbles backwards, falling.

“I’m not here to fight you,” Yuri snaps to the blue-haired rider. “I’m here to fight her.”

Yugo looks up at him in disbelief. Then, his gaze moves between the two, his gaze sharper than what Yuri had once believed.

“Serena…is she your Rin? Is she the girl from your universe, the one you are bound to?” Yugo frowns, as if his words confuse himself.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. This is a personal battle,” Yuri calls monsters onto his field. “And you just happen to be interrupting it.”

Yugo wipes at his chin. “Whatever,” the boy pointedly glares at him. “As long as you’re helping me.” He pauses, gazing at Yuri suspiciously. “Truce?”

He looks at the blue-haired boy with an amused smile. “Truce.”

And they battle.

~~~

_It isn’t long before Serena is wiped from his mind. The Professor has entrusted him with the ability to card people, to send them to a prison that’s worse than death. It gives him such pleasure to watch the people before him, adult and children, wither with horror and fear. They bow before him, these weaklings. And, in return, he grants them a paradise in the shape of cards._

_He can’t stop carding people. It’s become a sort of need, one that fills the insatiable hunger that claws at his mind. The Professor, wise man that he is, attends to that need and sends him out on the frontlines to vanquish those who stand in his way. Yuri is all too happy to oblige, unable to keep his fingers from pressing the device that transforms every rebel into rectangular shaped objects._

_Yuri grows up with the knowledge that he is powerful, that he is a deity able to determine life or death. And that feeds him, feeds his mind and the itch that claws at his mind._

_He wants to card people. It’s an addiction, one that he can never stop. If he does, he’s going to stop existing._

~~~

The battle ends without the need to call for Yuri’s prized dragon. Shockingly, he and Yugo make a good team, defending and maintaining each other’s life points until they can whittle Serena’s to zero.

Almost immediately, Serena screams and then collapses to the ground. Yugo is silent, as is Yuri, before the former rushes to her side, nudging her with a hint of desperation.

“Wake up, wake up,” he says. “Rin. No, Serena, wake up!”

Yuri strolls over, looking down at her. “She’s unconscious.”

His blue-haired rival grabs Serena’s arm and slings it over his shoulder. “A little help here?” he asks Yuri.

The magenta-eyed boy huffs. “I don’t like being ordered.”

“So you would rather leave her here then, in the middle of a warzone?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Then help me, goddammit.”

He laughs and grabs Serena’s other arm, draping it against his shoulder.

A whisper, so soft, murmurs into his ear. “Don’t touch me so casually.”

He looks in surprise as Serena’s eyes open and center upon him, a deadly blaze burning even in the midst of her weakened condition.

“Oh?” he smiles at her. “You’re awake?”

“B-Bastard,” she hisses. “Are you here to take me back?”

“Oi, he’ll do no such thing.”

Serena’s eyes widen a fraction and her head turns to see Yugo at her other side. “Yugo!” she exclaims. Her relieved tone irritates Yuri, rubbing him the wrong way. “But why are you here?”

“To save Rin, of course!” he chirps happily and then frowns, as if he’s realized he’s in the presence of the enemy. He glares at Yuri. “Are you going to stop me?” he inquires.

“I might,” the purple-haired boy replies lightly. However, his attention is more focused on Serena, who is breathing heavily, eyes half-closed. “Oi, Serena, stay with us.”

She frowns at him, disbelief clear in her face. “Why are you helping me?”

“That’s the question I want to ask,” Yugo snorts. “He’s not the reliable type.”

Yuri contemplates the question while ignoring Yugo’s commentary. “I think I owe you a debt,” he says to Serena. “I scared you, didn’t I? Long ago?”

“You came after me while I was drugged. Of course I’m going to think you’re fucking scary.”

“Language,” he chides. She huffs. “Besides, I was only after you because the Professor ordered me to. I just didn’t think you were the last piece of the puzzle.”

“You listened to me,” Yugo says suddenly in surprise, moving towards his D-Wheel. “You actually opened your eyes. Now do you realize that something’s wrong? You can’t fight for the Professor forever.”

“And what better options do I have?” he snarls, irritation flaring. “Join you and your band of idiots? The Professor has an ideal world, one that I can help create. He lets me card people – your company won’t.”

His blue-haired counterpart looks at him with loathing. “Is carding people the only thing you can ever think of?”

“It’s like breathing to me,” Yuri responds instantly. “If I don’t, I don’t think I can continue to exist.”

Yugo makes a disgusted sound while Serena remains quiet. “You don’t have to card people,” Yugo speaks to him on a patient level, one that is toned down from its normal pace of childish outburst. “You can always stop.”

“Says the pawn of Fusion.”

“It’s Yugo, not Yuugou!” his counterpart snaps, falling along to the rhythm of their normal banter.

“Shut up,” Serena groans. “Shut up, both of you. You’re all too loud.”

He eyes the woman who lies in the splitting image of his childhood companion. His gaze softens against his will and he frowns. “Serena, do you remember me?”

“Didn’t I just tell you? You came after me when I was hit by nerve gas.”

“No, before.”

Serena’s gaze flickers and, then, her eyes turn cold. “Yuri, how dare you try to take my puppet away from me,” her voice is reminiscent of the Doctor’s.

The girl lunges forward and out of their grips. “Duel me,” she says suddenly.

“Again?” Yugo exclaims.

“I’ll take her on,” Yuri responds. “You can leave.”

“Are you going to capture her again?”

“Are you going to waste precious time battling Serena when you should be looking for your cute little Rin?”

Yugo huffs, looking between the two. Then, as if he has already made up his mind, he rushes to his D-Wheel. “Truce?” he calls.

“Truce,” the purple-haired boy smirks. “For the last time.”

“I owe you nothing,” Yugo yells.

“As expected.”

The boy’s D-Wheel flares to life and, after a pause of time in which his gaze lingers suspiciously on Yuri, he speeds off. Yuri faces Serena, his duel disk between them. “Doctor, leave Serena alone.”

“Can’t do,” Serena speaks in an imitation of the man’s voice, smiling broadly. “I am the Doctor’s toy, I will never return to who I once was. The Serena you knew as a child is gone, Yuri.”

And she laughs. The sound is cruel, harsh, but Yuri merely narrows his eyes.

“Serena,” he says. “Do you know what a moonflower is?”

“Huh?” she asks with a sneer. “What games are you playing now? You realize she can’t hear you, right?”

“They’re white flowers. And, no, they are not as round as the moon, like you once believed.” He pulls a card from his deck and summons a monster.

Serena’s eyes widen a slight fraction. She clutches at her head, groaning loudly.

He presses forward. “They’re beautiful, those flowers. You never did get to see them though,” he sighs.

_One day, he returns to the garden. He doesn’t know why or how he got there, but he arrived with the moon on his back. All of his flowers were closed for the night, taking shelter in the darkness of the night._

_The moonflowers, however, open their hearts to him. Bright, brilliant plants, they glimmer a milky white that could rival the moon’s own light._

_He touches a finger to one and watches as it shivers with surprise._

_In a way, he wishes someone else could be here to see them with him._

“It’s too bad,” Yuri continues after the flashback intrudes his thoughts. “You would’ve loved them. They looked stunning under the moonlight, much like your name sake.”

Serena’s eyes flare and then, suddenly, she wobbles, collapsing to her knees. “Yu…ri?” she asks, looking up at him.

“Hmm?”

“Yuri,” she repeats. “Yuri, is that you? After all this time…Yuri did you change?”

He watches her carefully. A trick? “Do you remember the flower garden?”

The purple-haired girl gives a feverish nod. “Yes. We worked on it together. You did most of the work while I watched. You wanted it to be a surprise for me but I found out before you could grow them.”

He asks another question. “What kind of flower did you say looked beautiful?”

“A…A daisy,” she responds, then frowns at herself. “I don’t…I don’t remember any of this. What did you do to me? Did you…did you change my memories?”

“I did no such thing. Those are your true memories. Serena, we’ve met before. Long ago. We were friends, remember?”

She laughs in disbelief. “That’s not right,” she says, a hand covering one eye and fingers spread across her bangs. She gives a torn laugh, one that highlights her befuddlement. “We can’t be friends. You’re the enemy of the Lancers!”

“And you’re the princess of Fusion, forever locked away by the Professor,” he places a few more cards down. “I end my turn.”

“You…are you truly Yuri?” she pauses. “No, of course you are. That day, that day…when you…when you crushed all of those boys…that was you, wasn’t it? You nearly killed them. I…I remember.” She smiles at him. “Yuri, it’s nice to see you’ve changed.”

And she draws a card, moving to call upon monsters of her own. She attacks and destroys one of his creatures before using the other to attack him directly. “You can’t fool me,” she crows. “I know what kind of tricks you’re playing.”

He frowns. “A pity. And I thought I had gotten through to you.”

“How does it feel, Yuri? To have your precious person taken from you?” Serena gestures to herself, grinning with insanity. “How does it feel, to know she will never be yours?”

She ends her turn. He draws a card and with a smile, says: “Fusion summon.” The boy clasps his hands together and pulls them down in front of his chest. “Starve Venom, come to my aid!”

Before him, his splendid beast appears. The creature roars at its master’s distress and whips towards Serena, teeth bared. He looks at it, sighs, and then orders an attack. “Serena, try to focus on me. We used to have fun together.”

“Fun? You thought frolicking around in a garden was fun? It was sooo boring, watching you attend to your precious plants. Who could believe that you, one of Academia’s greatest soldiers, could have given such a damn over stupid plants?”

His eye twitches. “Serena,” he says in warning.

“You were always so innocent, so naïve,” she waves a hand, sneering. “I can’t believe you thought we were once friends. What, were you so desperate one that you thought I would actually commit myself to you?”

“Stop it,” he snaps. “Stop it now.”

“Oh, poor little you,” she slides a finger down her cheek in the imitation of a tear. “Poor little Yuri, all alone in this giant castle. I may have been a captured princess, but you were the demon locked away until they could finally find a use for you. So useless, so weak…”

“Stop it,” he hisses. “Stopitstopitstopitstopitstopit…!”

“You never had any friends,” she continues, ignorant to his sudden flare in temper. “You thought you could count on me, didn’t you, to share your love for flowers? Well, let me tell you now, I hate flowers. They’re boring and ugly, wouldn’t you agree?”

A switch flips. Yuri pauses before hands cup his cheeks and eyes of insanity greet his own. He blinks and reaches out, hand placed upon a mirror of glass. A figure, silver and grinning, touches his fingers.

Yuri blacks out.

~~~

_The world is a black void. It’s full of darkness, an abysmal place that lingers in his unconscious. Beside him, three others hold out their hands. He watches them and holds out his hand in reciprocation. Their fingers touch, meeting on different planes of a shimmering glass. Their bodies glow, glow with the colors of the dragons they wield, and they look at each other with anger alight in their eyes._

_“We will become one.”_

~~~

When he awakens, the world is restored. He doesn’t know how, he doesn’t know why, but he knows the world has been returned to the way it once was.

Beside him, sitting in a manner similar to his own, are his three counterparts. Each of them look back and forth between the others, before four hands beckon to each of them.

From beside him, he hears feminine voices speaking to the boys around him.

“Yugo,” a green-haired girl says to his Synchro counterpart. “Come here.”

The black-haired girl, the one Yuri first captured, gazes upon his XYZ counterpart with polite fondness. Beside her is another, a boy wearing a trenchcoat and a red scarf. He also offers a hand to Yuto, silent but smiling.

“Yuya!” Yuzu holds out a hand before forcibly pulling him to his feet and enclosing the boy in a hug. “I missed you!”

Yuri looks up, at the girl that overshadows him, and Serena grins down at him, her eyes lost of any glaze. She is not controlled, that much he can tell, but the warmness in her face is unfamiliar to him. “Yuri,” she tells him. “Take my hand.”

He shares a look with his dimensional counterparts, one that reflects their confusion and exasperation, and then he reaches for Serena’s hand. Yugo and Yuto do the same for their girls (and, in Yuto’s case, he reaches for the strange boy’s hand too) and the bracelet girls reciprocate by bringing them to their feet.

Serena sighs, squeezing his hand. “Yuri, I remember,” she says to him. “I remember everything. I remember the garden, I remember us playing together. Do you remember the stick I used to carry with me? I liked to poke you with it?”

“Yeah, I hated it,” his gaze softens, his suspicions disappearing.

The girl laughs. “Well, if you want, we can start up a garden again.”

He eyes her. “After all I’ve done?”

She watches him. “Do you not remember anything?”

The boy shakes his head. “No.”

Serena looks over to her own counterparts and the boys who stay in their grasps. The girls frown, looking contemplative.

“Do you remember Zarc?” Yuzu asks them.

“Do you remember Ray?” Ruri inquires after a pause of silence, as if the name is supposed to mean something..

“Ray?” Yugo asks with furrowed eyebrows.

“Zarc?” Yuto adds. He turns to the strange boy. “Shun, what do they mean?”

Shun offers a helpless shrug, like it isn’t his responsibility to respond to that question.

The girls exchange a look. “We need to tell them,” Rin says.

“But now?” Yuzu bites her lip. “We just got them back.”

“Later?” Serena asks.

“Later,” they nod their heads in agreement.

The boys stare at them dumbly.

Shun gives a small chuckle. “Let’s just enjoy ourselves for now.”

Serena grabs Yuri’s hand. “All you four need to know for now is that the four dimensions are united.”

“They are?” Yugo asks.

His female counterpart, gestures to the world around them. “Look around you, Yugo.”

And, despite the fact that three of their names aren’t Yugo, the four boys take a chance to realize their surroundings. A world of bright lights and solar panels meets their view, of cities placed atop white columns and of a tower with a heart placed on its tip. Skyscrapers reach for the heavens while a school similar to Academia’s foundation stands around them.

“Is this…?” Yugo’s jaw drops in awe.

“What is this?” Yuya clarifies, looking at Yuzu in question.

“Welcome to the true dimension,” she responds. “Standard, Synchro, XYZ, Fusion, they’re all here. Of course, everyone who was carded is here too.”

“Really, so Dennis and Tsukikage and Crow and all the others are alive?” Yuya leans forward, looking at the pink-haired girl expectantly.

Yuzu brings out a fan from out of hammer space and whacks him on the head with it. He yelps and draws back, pouting. Yuri raises an eyebrow at his reaction and stifles a laugh.

“Yes, they’re all alive again,” Serena says. “But that’s not important. All four of you are back now. There’s no war, no battles to be fought or people to card,” she looks at Yuri. He stares back, confused at the point she is trying to make. “So, we want to ask you all, now that everything has ended, can we declare a truce? Can you all put aside your differences now that everything is solved?”

Yugo looks at Yuri. Yuya at Yuto. Then, all three boys turn to Yuri, eyes staring at him expectantly.

He gazes at them defiantly. “What?”

“Are you going to attack people again?” Yugo asks him.

It’s strange but, now that Yugo points it out to him, he doesn’t feel like carding people. The sudden urge to card is lost on him and he feels as if the addiction was only a distant piece of him. “I don’t know,” he says, as if he can’t bring himself to lie to the boys who gaze upon him with soft, rounded eyes. “If the Professor orders me to…”

“He won’t,” a voice says. Yuri looks up to see a seventeen year old boy strolling to his side. He holds an uncanny resemblance to Akaba Leo. Yuri can guess his name. Reiji Akaba. “My father has promised not to card any more people.”

“Oh…that’s disappointing.”

“Disappointing?” Yugo splutters, hands up in a strangling position. He’s restrained by Rin, who gives a subtle sigh of exasperation as she holds the back of his suit with both hands. “You bastard!”

Yuya gives a nervous look while Yuto only shows his disapproval through a harsh glare. Yuri looks between the three and then to Serena. She is frowning at him, her disappointment clear on her face. He scowls and then slides his gaze to the side, nearly pouting. “I won’t card anyone,” he says, “so stop looking at me like that.”

His Standard counterpart places a hand on his shoulder. “I believe you,” Yuya says, smiling.

Yuto begrudgingly follows Yuya’s lead, his palm hovering over Yuri’s other shoulder. “Don’t ask me why, but I believe you too.”

Yugo scoots forward, his gaze to his feet. Rin is behind him, pushing him forward. She whispers something in his ear and he mutters a response before looking straight at Yuri and offering him a hand. “I…I don’t want us to fight,” he scowls, his shoulders deflating in heed of that simple sentence. “Truce?”

“Truce,” Yuri snickers, clasping his hand with a smirk, “ _Yuugou_.”

“Why you-!” Yugo lunges for him and Rin pulls the boy by his collar, a hand slapped across her forehead.

“It was going so good too,” the green-haired girl shakes her head at the boy, pulling him back as his arms reach desperately for Yuri.

Serena’s grip tightens on Yuri’s other hand. He yelps and looks at her with a frown. “Be nice,” she scolds him.

“I don’t have to listen to you.”

She nods to Yuzu and the girl, as if sensing Serena’s attention, leaves Yuya’s side to retrieve a branch. Yuri’s eyes widen and he tries to back away from the girl who is forcibly holding his hand. “Here!” Yuzu says, and she tosses the slender object to Serena.

The girl catches it, her fingers curling around the branch. He lunges for it, desperate to knock it away, but Serena restrains him by standing on the tips of her toes. He’s left reaching for the branch but, as he is too short to apparently function, he fails to reach it. His hands fall to his sides and he gives in to the torture that’s undoubtedly about to occur.

The branch prods his cheek and he glares at Serena, wishing to strangle her on the sport. However, he is restrained by the sheer amount of witnesses remaining in his vicinity.

“Is this really the same guy who kidnapped Ruri?” Shun inquires to Yuto, unimpressed.

“Yeeep,” Yuto replies, drawing out the word. “Kind of unbelievable, right?”

Yuri growls, swiping at the branch. Serena avoids his frenzied attempts and whacks him on the head. He yelps and clutches at his head, pouting.

“Well, I don’t think we need to worry about him coming after us,” Yugo snorts. “Serena will keep him tight on a leash, right?”

“Maybe,” the purple-haired girl replies lightly. She lowers the branch and gives an exasperated glare to Yuri. He reciprocates it with a furious pout.

Yuzu rubs her forehead. “Regardless…” she looks between the two and then to the rest of them. “Who’s up for ice cream? It’s been a long day – I think we all deserve some.”

“Ice cream?” Yugo inquires, his fury for Yuri forgotten. Rin blinks at her Standard counterpart, just as lost as Yugo is. “What’s that?”

“A kind of treat,” Yuya tells him. “It’s really cold but tasty!”

“We haven’t had some since before the war happened,” Shun adds, looking at Yuto and Ruri. Yuto’s mouth is already watering while Ruri’s eyes glisten with hope.

“There’s a parlor nearby,” Reiji says, a phone already in his hands. Yuri wonders when he had the time to pull out such a device. “I know the man in charge. He’ll give it to us for free until I can get the Leo Corporation under my command again.”

“Sounds good,” Serena says, tugging Yuri forward. “We should go,” she tells him. “You’ll like it.”

He looks at them. At all of them. And, he wonders, what happened between the time on the battlefield and the time he awakened. But, he supposes, he doesn’t care. He’s happy. He’s happy to be here with all of them. With his dimensional counterparts, and their female representatives.

And, most of all, he’s happy to be with Serena.

So, he smiles and squeezes her hand. “Sure, let’s go.”

**Author's Note:**

> I really love the idea of Yuri owning a garden and to whomever came up with that idea, thank you. Little Yuri attending to plants is a really cute idea. 
> 
> Ending is rushed but I couldn't find a place to end it so have a poorly done timeskip and a lack of explanation because I don't want to go through explaining how everyone won the war against Leo, saved the dimensions, and blah, blah, blah.
> 
> Also, I saw the new ending and, please, can we have all those scenes exist at the very end? Like, seeing Yuto flirting with Ruri only to be scared shitless by Shun walking by is a very hilarious idea that I want to see executed. Also, Predatorshipping = very much yes. Don't know if we will actually get it but it has potential now so yay, hopefully?
> 
> Next fic idea will probably deal with the Yuus working at fast food chains. Expect Pawnshipping and whatever Rin/Ruri is along with other probable, non-canon pairings. Can I just say now that it's hard not to ship everyone with everyone in this fandom? Write a good fic of any two characters (except maybe anything that isn't just platonic!Shun and Ruri) and I can almost guarantee you I will fall for that shipping. Don't know why all these adorable characters can be shipped with every other character but, damn, are they all shippable!
> 
> Anyways, thanks for reading this nearly 30 page monster (it's 57 pages in size 16 font. Ugh). Hope you enjoyed it~


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